PHILLIMON MHLANGA IN VICTORIA FALLS
The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Zimbabwe (ICAZ) is taking a big step towards the construction of the institute’s Centre of Excellence (COE) by setting up a Trust to handle funds for the mega project, Business Times can report.
ICAZ has also engaged a South African consortium led by DK Advisory to analyse the project and advise the institute. Real estate giant, First Mutual Life Properties (FML Properties) has also been engaged as independent experts.
Speaking at the ICAZ annual general meeting held Thursday in the resort town of Victoria Falls, the institute’s CEO, William Mandisodza (pictured) revealed that the preferred location of the COE,which will be the new home of ICAZ and also have commercial space to let out and sporting facilities, is along Borrowdale Road in the capital Harare.
“There was a realization that for the institute to be sustainably run, it needs to have its own income generating projects. And subscription funds will be mainly for development purposes. The idea was then born to say let’s establish a COE, which is a building that will earn revenue. This will mean that pressure on subscriptions will decrease, and our institute will become attractive in terms of operating costs,” Mandisodza said.
He added: “To achieve that, we are in the process of setting up an Integrity Trust to handle the proceeds from the sale of the centennial book, which will be seed capital to go towards the COE project. We will also look at other financial models to raise funds for the project, which will be the new home of ICAZ that we will pass on to the next generation of chartered accountants.
The COE project is currently at evaluation stage following the high-level business case analysis report done by South African consortium led by DK Advisory. FML Properties have also been engaged as independent experts.”
